The
black, shining waters swirled by, coming into the light of our lamps out
of an ebony blackness and vanishing again into impenetrable black.
And on the waters came shapes, came things that flashed upon us for a
moment, now a half-submerged boat, now a cow, now a huge fragment of a
house's timberings, now a muddle of packing-cases and scaffolding.
The things clapped into sight like something shown by the opening of a
shutter, and then bumped shatteringly against us or rushed by us. Once I
saw very clearly a man's white face....
'All the while a group of labouring, half-submerged trees remained ahead
of us, drawing very slowly nearer. I steered a course to avoid them.
They seemed to gesticulate a frantic despair against the black steam
clouds behind. Once a great branch detached itself and tore shuddering
by me. We did, on the whole, make headway. The last I saw of Vreugde bij
Vrede before the night swallowed it, was almost dead astern of us....'
Section 9
Morning found Barnet still afloat. The bows of his barge had been badly
strained, and his men were pumping or baling in relays. He had got about
a dozen half-drowned people aboard whose boat had capsized near him, and
he had three other boats in tow. He was afloat, and somewhere between
Amsterdam and Alkmaar, but he could not tell where.
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